CydandClaude Fable 5
cbf7015620
Renderer (dpl3-revive/patha): - Instance visibility honored at DRAW time (stored word 4 = live dpl_SetInstanceVisibility field): laser beams (4-frame pulses) and missile models now render; cache tags w3 0/1 instances 'gated' - PSFX world bursts (dcs=0 muzzle/impact/explosion) rendered; psfx storage list-based so one-shot bursts stop collapsing onto one key - fix_degenerate applied to INSTANCE chains (was camera-only): the beam chain rides four rank-2 rig DCSs; composed rank-2 drew beams away from the guns. Offline f1635 now shows both arm beams converging on the aim point - First-person canopy cull: the always-armed cockpit model at the head drew as a vertical line down screen center (user-confirmed fixed live) Device (vpx-device/vpxlog.cpp): - CAM backchannel on the fifosock: bridge streams its validated camera (+ vehicle root DCS); raycast_pick aims along the player's real look instead of the static view-node pose, which had locked every missile/beam onto one fixed wrong world point - raycast_pick skips hidden-until-armed instances and the player's own articulation subtree: picking own beams created a target feedback loop, picking own missiles retargeted salvos mid-flight, and a picked missile's deleted DCS froze the game (arena2 crash) Sound (vpx-device/vweawe.cpp): stereo-linked peak limiter replaces the hard output clamp (the "generator out" crackle); VWE_AWE_LOG reports pre-limit peaks + duck counts, enabled in launch_pod.ps1. Missile-fire crackle persists: per-voice EMU8000 clamp suspected. Eggs/confs: TESTAR2.EGG + gauge_arena2_sound.conf (map=arena2 city variant); cavern.egg (console-era reference); plasma display on COM2 in the gauge confs; gauge_arena_net_sound.conf (slirp net stack). Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
dpl3-revive
Porting the Virtual World Entertainment DPL3 renderer (BattleTech / Red Planet arcade pods, c. 1994–97) to modern hardware. The original ran on an Intel i860 graphics coprocessor driven by an x86 DOS host; the i860 and its PixelPlanes-5-style board are long gone, so the plan is a reimplementation on a modern GPU, not a recompile.
The source drive is treated as a read-only archive. Nothing here writes back to it; the reference source and sample models below were copied out of it.
Status
Milestones 1 & 2a — asset formats decoded. The .B2Z / .V2Z binary geometry
format and the .SVT texture format are both fully reverse-engineered, with
working, validated parsers. Models export to OBJ; textures export to PNG. The art
is now recoverable independent of the dead engine.
Roadmap:
- ✅ B2Z/V2Z geometry format — spec + parser + OBJ export.
2a. ✅ SVT texture format — spec + parser + PNG export (
0BGR, size-inferred dims). - ✅ GPU viewer — self-contained WebGL page renders textured models on modern
hardware (
viewer/). Proves the whole art pipeline end-to-end. 2b. ✅ SCN scene format — plain-text scenes parsed + assembled into world space (models placed via the exact DPL transform), textured, fogged, and rendered.CANAL.SCN(47 objects) explorable in the viewer. - ✅ SPL camera splines — cubic-Hermite fly-through paths evaluated and animated.
RAPTOR.SCN+CAMERA.SPLplay back the original 1994 flyover in the viewer. 4b. ✅ Scene gallery — the viewer now hosts several recovered worlds (Raptor flyover, Red Planet canal, underwater reef). Fish are textured by the model-name convention (shark→SHARK.SVT) when the material carries none. 4c. ✅ Historical archive — every resolvable scene (~60) and every binary model (~264) batch-built and browsable in a searchable, lazy-loading viewer (archive.html+serve.py) with Scenes/Models tabs. Camera has mouse orbit + WASD fly movement (Q/E for down/up). A large array to judge render/colour. - ✅ Material libraries + output gamma — authoritative per-material colour+texture
from each model's
.V2Z(DIFFUSE × texture), detail textures as luminance, and the Division card's 10-bit-DAC gamma-1.7 curve (GAMMA.C) for the authentic pastel look. Red rock / grey concrete columns / red pipes now match the original. 5b. ✅ Texture V orientation — the original renderer samples v=0 at SVT row 0 (no flip). Fixed a wrong global V-flip that inverted mech cockpits/pods and fish shading. Also decoded GLOMM bit-plane texture packs (*ALL.SVT) — seespec/SVT_FORMAT.md. 5d. ✅ Game maps: MAP / MOD — the real playable worlds (BattleTech arenas, Red Planet tracks) from the game trees'MAPS/dirs: INI-style maps placing.MODgame objects (→ BGF video geometry) with nesting, includes, and pod dropzones (drawn as red markers). Also fixed the 1996 LOD-container BGF layout, which unlocked ~850 game models that previously parsed empty. Archive: 142 scenes + 41 maps + 1,462 models, with a Maps tab in the viewer. 5c. ✅ Game-side formats: BGF / BMF / VGF / VMF / BSL — the game pipeline turns out to be the same BIZ2/VIZ2 family:.BGFgeometry,.BMF/.VMFmaterial libraries (namespaced refs likestships:eblu4_mtl), plusDIV-BSL2bit-slice texture packs (texture tag0x018= BITSLICE). This unlocked Star Trek (the "Tesla" Galaxy-class starship + Klingon cruiser, hull textures fromSTEH.BSL) and the BattleTech / Red Planet / Hull Pressure game content. Archive now holds 142 scenes + 608 models across all product lines. - ⬜ Port the DPL3 geometry pipeline (transform / light / cull / LOD) from the C.
- ⬜ Replace the PXPL5 rasterizer backend with the GPU.
Path A — run the original binaries unmodified (alternative track)
The full original DPL3 engine source is on the archive drive (sda4/DPL3/), both the
DOS host side and the i860 board side. That means the VelociRender wire protocol the
host uses to drive the (dead) i860 board is fully documented in C — no disassembly. Path
A stands up a virtual VelociRender board: emulate the INMOS C012 link adapter (six I/O
ports at 0x150) as a DOSBox-X device, answer the 24-command protocol, and use the
renderer this project already built as the board's guts — so FLYK.EXE and the other
HPDAVE/DPL3 binaries run unmodified, renderer transparently swapped underneath.
Spec + architecture: spec/VELOCIRENDER_PROTOCOL.md.
Layout
spec/ format documentation
B2Z_FORMAT.md the reverse-engineered DIV-BIZ2 geometry spec
SVT_FORMAT.md the reverse-engineered SVT texture spec
SCN_FORMAT.md the reverse-engineered SCN scene-format spec
SPL_FORMAT.md the reverse-engineered SPL camera-spline spec
parser/ the decoders (pure Python 3, no deps)
b2z.py geometry reader + triangulating OBJ exporter
svt.py texture reader + PNG exporter
scn.py scene-file reader + the DPL instance-transform math
spl.py camera-spline evaluator (cubic Hermite) -> camera frames
samples/ small test models/textures from the archive (+ exported .obj/.png)
source-ref/ read-only copies of the original DIVISION source that define the format
viewer/ the WebGL viewers
bundle.py packs a few curated scenes into one self-contained HTML
dpl3-viewer.html the curated gallery (open in any browser; shareable)
archive.py batch-builds EVERY resolvable scene -> data/*.json
archive.html the historical archive viewer (searchable, lazy-loads scenes)
serve.py local launcher for the archive (needed for fetch())
data/ one JSON per scene + manifest.json (~60 scenes)
render_preview.py CPU rasterizer used to verify the pipeline
preview_*.png verification renders
Usage
python parser/b2z.py dump samples/TESTBOX.B2Z # structural dump
python parser/b2z.py obj samples/BALL.B2Z out.obj # export triangulated OBJ
python parser/svt.py info samples/SHARK.SVT # texture dimensions/stats
python parser/svt.py png samples/SHARK.SVT out.png # export texture to PNG
python parser/scn.py "<archive>/DPL3RLS/SCENES/CANAL.SCN" # dump a scene's contents
python viewer/bundle.py # (re)build viewer/dpl3-viewer.html
Then open viewer/dpl3-viewer.html in any browser — drag to orbit, scroll to zoom,
switch models. It's fully self-contained (geometry inlined, textures as base64).
The historical archive (all ~60 scenes)
python viewer/archive.py # (re)build data/*.json for every resolvable scene
python viewer/serve.py # serve locally + open the archive viewer
serve.py opens http://localhost:8765/archive.html — Scenes and Models
tabs, each a searchable list grouped by product (Red Planet, BattleTech, Hull
Pressure, Star Trek, Milestone, Engine/Demo). Camera: drag to look, scroll
to zoom, WASD to fly, Q/E down/up. A live gamma slider (default 1.25)
tunes the Division-DAC brightness. A local server is required because browsers
block fetch() of local files over file://.
Rebuild subsets with python viewer/archive.py --scenes-only / --models-only;
re-tag products (no data rebuild) with --reclassify.
The exported .obj files open in any modern 3D tool (Blender, MeshLab, etc.);
the .png textures open anywhere.
Provenance
Format decoded from source-ref/BIZREAD.C — "Copyright DIVISION Limited (c) 1994,
author PJA" (Phil Atkin). Data model in source-ref/DPLTYPES.H. See
spec/B2Z_FORMAT.md §10 for the validation evidence.